


“They kiss.”

by iridescentglow



Category: The Fosters (TV 2013), The Fosters RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-27 19:55:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1720655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iridescentglow/pseuds/iridescentglow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s TV kissing, there’s drug store kissing, and then there’s real kissing… Maia and David react to Callie and Brandon’s first kiss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	“They kiss.”

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9OrdFzDrwU) where Maia talks about filming the kiss at the wedding.

“Oh my god,” Maia said when he picked up the phone.

“Yep,” said David.

His tone was bored, but she could hear his smile.

“Oh my god,” she said again.

“So you’ve got the script.”

“Of course I’ve got it. That’s why I’m ohmygod’ing.”

“I expected this call about two hours ago, you know,” he said. “I’ve already read the whole thing twice and you’re just now getting to the third act?”

Maia lay sprawled on her bed, script spread out in front of her, phone pressed to her ear.

“Excuse me,” she huffed. “I have heaps of things to do. I don’t wait around for the courier to drop off my script. I was… meeting some friends. For… dinner.”

He didn’t reply and the silence made her squirm.

“Fine,” she said, “I was dicking around on the Internet.”

“Porn?” he asked politely.

“Pugs,” she replied miserably.

“If that’s what you’re into, I guess,” he said, laughing.

“…Ugh, now I’m picturing pugs dressed in red velvet smoking jackets seducing lady pugs in gold Leia bikinis.”

“So, _that’s_ what you’re into,” he said, his laughter doubling. “This conversation is very enlightening.”

“Shut up,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You’ve read the script?”

“I’ve read the script.”

“You’ve read _the scene_?”

“I’ve read every scene. But I’m assuming you’re referring to our tender first kiss.”

Maia flipped back through her script, scanning the pages rapidly.

“Does it say ‘tender’? Where does it say ‘tender’?”

“It doesn’t say ‘tender’. It just says ‘they kiss’.”

Maia lay back, defeated, and tossed her script aside.

“And what does _that_ mean?” she asked.

“…Do we need to talk about the birds and the bees? Because babies come from storks and you kiss with your toes.”

“You know what I mean!” she burst out. “There are different types of kissing! Are we supposed to kiss like… full-on pashing, or just, like… I went to the chemist with you and we were bored so we kissed a little.”

On David’s end of the call, Maia heard noises. Clinking noises. Like someone was pouring wine. Like a girlfriend was pouring wine for him. Did David even drink wine? He probably drank wine.

“I have no idea what ‘pashing’ means, first of all,” he said. “Is this something you picked up from your pug porn? …And what the hell do you get up to at the drug store?”

“Beside the point,” she said, feeling her face colour at the memory.

There was a lull in the conversation. Maia heard more clinking. Then David asked:

“Still on for Sam’s tomorrow?”

“Yeah, okay,” she said.

They said their goodbyes and ended the call.

Maia flipped through her script again, more slowly this time. She read _the scene_ a couple more times, imagining David’s voice as Brandon said his piece to Callie: _You’re amazing—and kind—and smart—and beautiful_. She rubbed her fingers over the single line of direction that followed:

_They kiss._

Maia sighed and closed the script. She reached for her laptop. When she clicked it awake, a wall of ugly faces greeted her. Their little faces. Their ugly little faces. She began to scroll. Five more minutes of pugs. Then she’d figure out what she was actually doing with her life.

*

Maia and David had a standing date at a slightly scuzzy restaurant called Sam’s. A date. As in a date kept in a diary. That kind of date.

Since they had so many scenes together, it made sense to get together and rehearse, just the two of them, without the pressure of the table read. So the day after they got a new script, they usually met for lunch at Sam’s.

As she arrived at the restaurant – late, but not, like, _egregiously_ late – Maia caught sight of David waiting at a table in the corner. She found herself wondering who’d initiated these get-togethers. “I’m hungry,” she remembered saying once. “I know a place,” he’d replied. But maybe he’d also said something beforehand, like… “You hungry?” Or maybe an insult: “You look like you’re ready murder an infant and take a bite out of his chubby baby thighs.” That would make it his suggestion that they go out to eat.

It didn’t matter who’d said what, she supposed. It didn’t matter who’d first suggested their dates-as-in-dates-in-a-diary. Exactly she kinda felt like it mattered.

“You’re late,” he said as she sat down.

“Not egregiously late,” she said defensively, reaching for the menu.

“Not antidisestablishmentarianism late,” he said.

She narrowed her eyes at him over her menu.

“Not meningococcal-septicaemia late,” she said.

“That’s two words. Doesn’t count.”

“Hyphenated,” she said, smiling sweetly. “Totally counts.”

She didn’t know where their long-words game had come from. Or where their misapplied-sporting-metaphors game had come from. Or their describe-everything-like-a-scene-from-a-horror-movie game. During their short friendship, Maia and David had come up with an extraordinary variety of ways to talk about nothing at all.

Over lunch, the nothing continued.

By the time Maia was finishing up her apple pie and strongly regretting her decision to eat said apple pie, they finally wrangled the conversation back to their job. Marking the script pages with coffee cups, they talked about their scenes, running lines here and there, trying out different readings. They talked about every scene except for the kiss.

When Maia finally prodded him (literally, using her dessert spoon), David said:

“We’ll just be in the moment and see what happens.”

This was the exact opposite of David’s usual attitude toward acting. _She_ was the one who made statements like this. A director had once called her “intuitive”, which she suspected mostly meant lazy. If she needed to be sad for a scene, she thought of something sad. If she needed to get mad, she thought of people who took 11 items to the ‘10 items or fewer’ checkout.

David, by contrast, was the Actor (capital-A, two long syllables). He went to workshops. He worried about his “craft”. He sent her emails containing links to long, philosophical articles about stagecraft, of which she habitually read the first two sentences and then closed the tab in favour of looking at more pictures of pugs. He’d once complained, sincere in every anguished word, that “I just don’t know what my character’s motivation is in this scene!” – a fact which she’d never let him forget.

David was serious about his work. So why couldn’t he be serious about this?

“Should the kiss be sweet?” she asked, frowning. “Should it be passionate? …Should it be sweetly passionate?”

David rolled his eyes, ignoring her question.

“Did you drive Alex this crazy when you had to kiss him?”

The question stopped her short. When Callie had been scripted to kiss Wyatt, Maia and Alex had spent the couple of minutes before the scene munching breath mints awkwardly. Then they’d kissed. The crew had swivelled the shot and they’d kissed again. Then it was over. She’d barely thought about it before it had happened and she’d barely thought about it after it had happened.

“That was different,” she said to David. “That was… casual.”

“Drug store kissing, you mean?”

Now it was her turn to roll her eyes. David leaned across the table, wearing a maddening grin.

“Tell me about the guy you made out with at the drug store,” he said.

“I always tell you my embarrassing stories,” she said. “You never tell me your embarrassing stories.”

“That’s because I live my life with dignity and… suaveness. Suave-ity. Suave-ation.”

“I think suave-ation is something that happens to poor kids in Africa.”

“Tell me about the drug store.”

Maia hesitated for a moment and then gave in.

“Okay, it was the chemist,” she said, “because it was Australia. ‘Drug store’ makes it sound like we were picking up heroin.”

“Straya. Got it. No heroin to be had.”

“So one of my guy friends needed to get something from the chemist. He asked if I wanted to come with him. I said yeah. Because… I was fourteen and I lived in New South Wales. Nothing else to do. So… we went to the chemist, the two of us.”

“I can’t wait for the movie version of this story,” said David. “It’s gonna be intense.”

She ignored him.

“We were in the athlete’s foot aisle. And he kind of shoved me. So I shoved him back. If this were a movie, that would be a plot point.”

“Don’t worry, I’m paying attention,” said David and he mimed propping open his eyelids.

“Anyway, he bought his foot powder or whatever. We left the store and he walked me home. Or he walked home with me. There’s a difference.” She frowned. “Then, when we got to the end of my street, he… kind of… lunged at me. To try and kiss me. And I kinda… dodged it. And I said, really loud, THAT STUFF TAKES THIRTY-SIX HOURS TO WORK.”

“Wait, you were worried you were going to catch his athlete’s foot from kissing?”

“Nooo… I just panicked. My brain just lodged on that fact. My mouth just spit it out.”

David sat back in his chair, looking mildly impressed.

“You’ve gotta admit,” he said, “that guy had game. Turning a trip to the drug store into a date.”

“I didn’t know it was a date, though,” Maia said ruefully. “…I guess I’m just not that good at knowing when a guy’s into me.”

“Come on,” said David. “Every guy is into you.”

He didn’t say it longingly or mockingly. Just matter-of-factly. Maia looked at him closely, but he was inscrutable.

Utterly inscrutable. Completely free of scrutes. No scrutes were given.

*

When the day of the kiss rolled around, Maia found that she had a lot of crazy energy. She ran around the lot to try and get rid of it some of it and ran straight into Cierra. Cierra’s advice on how to handle the situation was, predictably, useless. (“I don’t know. You do the method thing. So just pretend you’re really into him and go for it,” Cierra said, followed by some suggestive giggling.) When Maia cornered Bradley and Peter, there was less giggling, but they weren’t much more helpful. (“Whatever it is… will be,” Bradley said, sounding like a _sensei_ or something.)

Finally, there was nothing to do but get on with it. When wardrobe, hair and makeup had made sure she was thoroughly Callie-fied, Maia stood next to David on set and waited for the crew to finish setting up. She thought of Alex and his breath mints and said:

“I ate garlic chicken for lunch, with a side of garlic bread.”

“Great,” David replied, “because I just ate an Indian, followed by a pitcher of coffee.”

Maia mimed gagging, then screwed her face up into a smile. He smiled back at her and, moments later, the scene was ready to go.

Once they began filming, Maia felt more relaxed than she’d been all day. She began to forget everything except what she was supposed to be saying – and what she was supposed to be feeling. Being an “intuitive” actress had certain advantages that way.

She stood there and said Callie’s lines and became Callie. When David said his piece – _you deserve to be happy, you deserve to have everything you want_ – it sounded different to how she’d imagined it. His Brandon voice was softer than David’s own voice. He sounded serious. Painfully sincere. His voice in the moment lacked the edge of irony that underlaid David’s real voice; it was missing the maddening tone he used to say _antidisestablishmentarianism_.

When the kiss finally happened, it was Callie who kissed Brandon and Brandon who kissed her back.

*

Like kids waiting for the school bell, Maia and David scuffed around the lot, waiting to find out if they were finished with filming for the day. It was late afternoon and the day’s heat lay heavy in the air. Watching crew members scurry across the lot, busybusybusy while she idled, only made Maia feel more lethargic. She supposed she was on a comedown. A kiss comedown.

She sneaked a look at David. He was a good kisser. She remembered that much. Her memory of the kiss scene was blurry from adrenaline and feigned desire. She remembered the warmth of his mouth. The feel of his hands on the small of her back. The solidness of him, broad shoulders and strong arms, holding her tight.

“You okay?” David asked, catching her gaze.

“Yeah… just hungry,” she said. After a day of being American, she found the words came out American.

“You wanna go to Sam’s when we’re done?”

She shrugged. “Okay. You can tell me one of your embarrassing stories this time.”

“I don’t have any.”

“Right,” she said sarcastically, hearing herself finally slip back into her real accent.

The hive of activity on the lot seemed to have moved away from them. Maia watched a single runner amble out of sight, leaving her and David more or less alone. She wondered if everyone had forgotten about them.

Beside her, David exhaled a long breath.

“You really wanna hear one of my embarrassing stories?” he asked.

“Yes! Finally.”

David sighed again and then began to speak.

“You remember that time my great-grandma stopped by the set. You met her, remember?”

“I think so,” said Maia.

“She thought you were my girlfriend,” said David. “I don’t even know why. She’s old and pretty crazy and she thinks I should’ve gotten married by now. Because she thinks it’s still 1955, I guess. But anyway, I… kind of let her think it… Mostly just to get her off my back.”

“You let her think I’m your girlfriend?”

“Ye-eah.” David gave a wincing smile. “And now she makes me send her pictures of you. And tell her what you’ve been doing. And, just so you know, it’s been three months you’ve been my pretend girlfriend.”

“Wow,” Maia said, turning the word over in her mouth. “No, really. _Wow._ That is embarrassing… Does she watch the show? Could you send her pictures from today’s shoot and tell her it’s our wedding? …Do you want me to shove a pillow up my shirt and pretend to be pregnant? …How long are you planning to let this run? Until she dies? How old _is_ she—?”

Maia broke off, because she was laughing too hard to speak.

“Oh, you’re enjoying this way too much,” said David. “I wish I hadn’t told you.”

When Maia’s laughter finally subsided, she said:

“No, no, no… fine, I’ll even the score.” She paused and took a deep breath. “You know every time we’ve gone to Sam’s, I’ve wondered if it was a date.”

“…We’ve gone to Sam’s a bunch of times. You thought they were all dates?”

“No, I _wondered_ ,” said Maia.

“So… Lemme get this straight,” David said, shaking his head. “My great-gramma thinks we’ve been a couple for three months. _You_ think we’ve been dating for two months. And I’m a tool who can’t tell a girl when I like her.”

“…You like me?”

“Yeah, I like you.”

He smiled at her and she smiled back at him.

She felt a squirmy, squiggly feeling in her stomach. It wasn’t a feeling she’d felt during Brandon’s carefully-phrased speech to Callie. It wasn’t a fictional feeling. It wasn’t manufactured desire or heat that dissipated when the director said _cut_. It was the warm, gooey, maddening feeling she felt each time she caught sight of David waiting for her on the other side of a dingy restaurant that had somehow become theirs.

“You realize we already had our first kiss?” she asked.

“So this can be our second first kiss,” he said, reaching for her.


End file.
